If it had been me, I would have documented (an email trail suffices) that I was instructed by Liam to do it without testing, and, if forced out, made it VERY public and embarrassed the company with their clients. Idiots like that deserve to be burned.

I think Snoofle was referring to Liam not Angie. Although he'd been an arsehole I agree with Dave, they must've known the processes were a bit inflexible and shouldn't have promised the turnaround to the client.

TRWTF is no means to test, this thing was presumably spitting out a CNC instruction set or similar, and I've always found some way with the supplied kit to do a paper preview and see what the thing is going to produce, it's usually a fairly standard feature, even if the kit is another building/kit/country ... and did no-one look at that the plate before sending it to print? That company must've wasted enough plate metal to make a battleship, and then fill it with rejected print runs.

We all know the last developer to join the team will get the blame, that's my job here, to be handed failed projects and let the permies slope off quickly. Sometimes I fix it, sometimes I don't, I don't actually, you know, care. Sign my timesheet, fire me, just don't expect me to feel responsible for your home-coded Armageddon.

This is why nobody wants to be a maintenance programmer. People like Liam create massive fuckups and you're never allowed to really fix them but you sure as hell catch the blame when they go off the rails. "Attention to detail" is the most cringe-worthy phrase in a job posting next to "team player" and both are huge red flags that something is rotten in Denmark.

"I would have documented (an email trail suffices) .... made it VERY public and embarrassed the company with their clients"
Yeah, no. In the first place, Liam was stapled to her shoulder for the whole time. No way to send or request email. Next, making things public in front of a client never EVER works no matter how much in the right you are. Liam is clearly a Golden Boy who can never be fired.

It would never, ever save Angie's job, but it would force the higher-ups to be confronted with Liam's incompetence.

I've done it before; if you say the right (wrong?) thing in front of the right person, you can start a back-blast. I didn't relish doing it, but the low/mid level managers were such morons, and blamed SO many people (except themselves, of course), that they had it coming. As the most senior person of the crew that was let go, I took it upon myself to launch the depth-charge (so to speak).

FWIW, after it blew up, I used my connections and got all 5 of us hired as the new development team for their competition.

When word got back that once laid off, we all went to the competition as a group, well, let's just say that the lower managers couldn't hide from managements' fury.

They are usually easily available anyway, shouldn't need to write one as the manufacturers supply them and their engraving shop should be able to hand it over or at least run it and email back the dxf/pdf or whatever.

Regardless, if they didn't have that process already in place I'm surprised they managed to stay in business.

I'm not sure why everyone's picking on Liam here. Angie was the one who "drew the short straw" specifically because she had a reputation for attention to detail. If she's the one tasked to make it work, she shouldn't allow herself to be talked out of making sure it's right so quickly, since it's her reputation (and job) on the line.